An AI-generated 60s-style band just went viral on Spotify. You might have even heard of them.
Velvet Sundown topped viral charts in the UK, Norway, and Sweden. They even found a significant audience here in Australia, picking up over 15,000 listeners in Sydney and 14,000 in Melbourne.
On the surface, it's a fascinating novelty. But when you look closer at the data, a more concerning story emerges, one about the hidden mechanics of AI, lost revenue for human artists, and the future of creativity itself.
However, this is more than just a computer making music; it's a critical look at what happens when AI is left unchecked.
At its heart, AI-generated music is a blurred remix of other people’s work: a derivative blend fed through algorithms that erase human intent and feeling.
Is that really the future of creativity? Just an algorithmic average of what’s already been done?
The real issue, however, was found in the streaming data. The band's viral success wasn't entirely organic. It was a case of AI driving AI.
Our analysis at Airtam revealed a closed loop: Spotify's recommendation algorithm was actively pushing the AI-generated content, which in turn earned revenue from the platform.
Indeed, Spotify's own research shows that a third of music discovery on its own platform is driven by algorithmic recommendations. So when you see an AI-generated artist rack up a million streams, you can estimate that 333,000 of those listens weren't organic; they were actively pushed to users by the platform's own AI.
The financial impact is tangible. By our own estimates, approximately $2,000 in artist revenue was lost to an AI band.
But the cost is higher than a single royalty cheque.
Every single one of those 333,000 algorithmic plays is a slot a human artist could have filled and a royalty they could have earned. It proves a system where automated creations can be automatically promoted, potentially squeezing human creators out of the very platforms designed to support them.
This isn't just a problem for the music industry. It's a case study in the unintended consequences of deploying AI without a robust strategy and ethical framework. As more businesses integrate AI, we must be vigilant about the systems we create, ensuring they serve human goals, not just self-perpetuating algorithms.
The future isn't about fighting AI, but about building it responsibly.
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